Alaska bans hunters from using drones

After “drone-assisted” moose kill, Board of Game prohibits their use as spotters.

It may be legal to do a lot of things with small, unmanned aircraft thanks to a recent administrative court ruling. But there’s one thing you certainly won’t be allowed to do: use them to hunt moose in Alaska. The Alaska Board of Game has moved to ban the use of drones by hunters to track down animals to kill.

Alaska already has a ban on using aircraft to spot game and then kill them on the same day. But after being informed earlier this year by the Alaska Wildlife Troopers of a hunter using a drone to spot and kill a moose nearly two years ago (and after hearing other concerns about the practice), the board’s seven members voted unanimously to ban the practice.

“What happens a lot of times is technology gets way ahead of regulations, and the hunting regulations don't get a chance to catch up for quite a while," Wildlife Troopers operations commander Captain Bernard Chastain told the Anchorage Daily News. “Other people don't have a fair opportunity to take game if somebody else is able to do that."

Drones will now join a list of other banned hunting tools, which include bombs, radio communication between hunters, exploding salt licks, and poison.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.